Andy Burnham, the man expected to enter Downing Street in three weeks, was blindsided by a £4.7bn hole in Keir Starmer’s long-awaited defence spending plan, The i Paper can reveal. The prime minister announced an extra £15bn for the armed forces over the next four years – but almost a third of that sum remains unfunded until the autumn Budget, when Burnham will be in charge.
Starmer said the defence investment plan (DIP) would reverse the “corrosive hollowing out” of the military under the Conservatives, raising annual spending to £80bn by 2029. The money came from cutting long-term investment budgets of other departments by 1%, with the Department for Transport making a further £700m in road savings and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero finding an extra £2bn. A £9bn scheme to upgrade military housing was delayed beyond 2030.
“Starmer's £15bn defence plan leaves a £4.7bn funding hole for successor Andy Burnham to fill.”
But the Treasury confirmed only £10.3bn in savings had been identified, leaving Burnham to find the remaining £4.7bn. A Treasury source suggested Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves had done Burnham a favour by nailing down the plan before he took office, but the scale of the gap was not shared with him in full.
The announcement came after an 11-month government row that cost two defence ministers. John Healey resigned in protest at the £13.5bn originally offered, saying: “Britain will still be spending just 2.7% of GDP in 2030, the date when Nato has warned we could face a Russian attack.” His successor, Dan Jarvis, secured the extra £1.5bn. “I have secured more money and made different choices for defence,” Jarvis said, noting 47 out of 49 defence programmes were “delayed or over budget”.
Under the plan, more than £64bn will go to nuclear deterrent projects including new submarines and F-35A fighter jets; £5bn to a “drone transformation”; and over £8bn to the global combat air programme with Japan and Italy. The Royal Navy will become a “hybrid navy” using autonomous vessels, and the RAF will develop uncrewed electronic warfare drones.
Starmer urged Burnham not to borrow more to fund defence, saying it “must be the number one priority at the next spending review”. The Conservatives called the plan “not worth the paper it’s written on”, since Starmer is stepping down as prime minister within weeks. The outgoing PM said the DIP would be “built on” by his successor – but he left him with a £4.7bn question mark.